One-line solution summary
Games-based learning system for smartphone literacy and digital skills.
Pitch your solution
Smartphones are a key gateway to the digital world for a large number of new workers in today’s digital workforce.
However, for first-time users and beginner users, there is a steep learning curve to using smartphones.
Our software product offers a personalized learning system that imparts smartphone usage skills, and advances broader digital literacy. It is designed for users of all skill levels, and is especially easy to use by beginners.
Smartphones are an indispensable productivity tool for an increasing number of users in their employment activities. By strengthening their smartphone skills and digital literacy, users can enhance their digital capabilities and gain access to a wider range of online opportunities and learning.
Film your elevator pitch.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Improve literacy, numeracy, and social emotional learning milestones while supporting a diverse range of learning pace and styles
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
London, UKIs your solution working in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and/or Malaysia?
What specific problem are you solving in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and/or Malaysia?
Our target country is Malaysia where there is a great digital divide within the country itself. The main cause of this digital divide is education. There is a huge disparity in the education level of the citizens due to lack of formal computer training. We want to bridge this gap by providing a free personalized learning system app that imparts smartphone usage skills, and advances broader digital literacy. It is designed for users of all skill levels, and is especially easy to use by beginners.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our product is designed for smartphone users of all skill levels, with emphasis on design for first-time smartphone users.
We are particularly interested in serving first-time users in target country Malaysia. The vast majority of these users do not have access to formal training solutions, and they often acquire their digital skills and usage habits through peer-based informal learning.
We plan to work with end users from various user communities, and obtain their direct feedback in order to understand their training needs. We are building partnerships with organizations to deploy our product with their community workers and target groups.
In addition, we are incorporating design elements and learning content into the product to address cultural barriers and attitudes towards technology, as well as concerns about online wellbeing and safety in relation to potential harms like screen addiction, online fraud, and spread of disinformation.
How does the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge?
We believe our solution is strongly aligned with the challenge, as it addresses the training needs of users who have access to smartphones, and yet lack the digital skills to fully exploit mobile technology in their livelihood and professional occupations. Our solution is accessible to beginner users, and we are particularly interested in serving users in emerging economies with demographics that have a large proportion of beginner users, who can benefit substantially by adopting mobile technology for their economic development.
What is your solution’s stage of development?
Growth: An initiative, venture, or organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several contexts or communities, which is poised for further growthWho is the Team Lead for your solution?
Abhijit Bhaware
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new application of an existing technologyWhat makes your solution innovative?
Our innovative educational application offers a systematic games-based learning solution that is deeply personalized, approachable and accessible, and widely available.
The mobile application’s accessibility and wide availability are significant advantages over formal training approaches, and are key factors that influence the scalability of our solution.
With a systematic games-based training system, our solution delivers higher levels of learning effectiveness and consistency, compared to peer-based informal training.
Additionally, the product will benefit our users in areas beyond their professional occupations by empowering them with digital skills, with which they can leverage mobile technology for productivity, communication, education, and health. The increased skill levels can be potentially beneficial for other organizations that are serving our user communities.
Have you tested your solution’s approach? If so, how?
Our mobile application is available as a free download in the Google Play store for Android phones. We have released initial versions of the application, and are working on expanding the features and learning content in upcoming releases.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
Our learning solution is an Android mobile application that can be downloaded for free from popular Android app distribution platforms.
The software application consists of a games-based learning system. The development of learning functionality is based on evidence-led principles of instructional design.
What is your theory of change?
Our product is designed for smartphone users of all skill levels, with emphasis on design for first-time smartphone users.
We are particularly interested in serving first-time users in developing countries like India. The vast majority of these users do not have access to formal training solutions, and they often acquire their digital skills and usage habits through peer-based informal learning.
We plan to work with end users from various user communities, and obtain their direct feedback in order to understand their training needs. We are building partnerships with organizations to deploy our product with their community workers and target groups.
In addition, we are incorporating design elements and learning content into the product to address cultural barriers and attitudes towards technology, as well as concerns about online wellbeing and safety in relation to potential harms like screen addiction, online fraud, and spread of disinformation.
Which target population(s) does your solution address?
What are the key characteristics of your target population?
Which categories best describe your main EdTech product or service?
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
A key indicator is the size of user base, which provides information about the number of users that are engaged in learning digital skills.
Additionally, we can measure the learning outcomes at a finer level in terms of learning areas by using near real-time software metrics.
What are your impact goals for the next year, the next three years, and the next five years? How will you achieve them?
One of our primary goals is to enable access to digital technology by addressing the digital skills barrier. We believe our approach of app-based training is relevant and applicable to a large proportion of smartphone users, including first-time users and beginners, and hence our solution has the potential to benefit several millions of users world-wide.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your impact goals?
Describe these barriers as they relate to your solution. How do you plan to overcome them?
Being a startup company, there are few barriers that we have to overcome to be successful. For instance, the market size for our product is targeted to first-time / entry-level users or community workers. In order to reach the targeted audience we have to make our product more visible and collaborate with organizations.
Please provide a brief history of your organization. What was the motivation behind starting your organization and/or the development of your solution?
We are a startup software company. Our company was incorporated about 2 years ago. The main motivation behind starting our organization was the digital divide that exist in developing countries. In today's emerging economies, smartphones are the most common type of mobile devices used for access to the Internet but there is a lack of formal computer training in many societies. Our product is designed to impart smartphone skills and digital literacy to enhance and empower livelihood.
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
How many people work on your solution team?
4 (including full-time and part-time)
How long have you been working on your solution?
Two years
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Our team is committed to building innovative software products that empower people through technology.
Abhijit, who is our CEO and Founder, is a software technologist with over 15 years of industry experience. Before launching Intractable, Abhijit worked at Apple, Inc in USA, and he has previously worked at early-stage startups as well as multinational corporations in USA and India.
We believe that to build an effective training product, it is critical to analyze user feedback and incorporate it in product development iterations. We plan to obtain direct feedback from our end users and partner organizations through user interviews, as well as study user behavior through software analytics in order to continuously refine the product.
Provide an example of your Team Lead’s ability to conceptualize and implement a new idea.
Abhijit, who is our CEO and Founder, is a software technologist with over 15 years of industry experience. Before launching Intractable, Abhijit worked at Apple, Inc in USA, and he has previously worked at early-stage startups as well as multinational corporations in USA and India.
Our Team Lead's ability to conceptualize and implement a new idea can be seen in our current product itself. He was able to create a prototype from scratch and develop it in a short time frame. Our product is now available for free download on Playstore for Android phones.
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
Currently we are seeking for partnership with organizations.
Why are you applying to the Octava Social Innovation Challenge?
We are seeking partnerships with organizations to study product adoption with end users (for example, community field workers), and would benefit greatly with the higher visibility from this challenge.
With our partnership activities, we hope to collect data about actual usage scenarios of our product, which would influence subsequent iterations leading to improved product functionality.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
To study product usage and impact, we plan to collect data from end users with software metrics (taking privacy concerns into account), as well as direct feedback in user interviews. We would benefit from partnerships particularly in identifying users and setting up interviews.
Solution Team
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AB
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SS
Sana Shijagurumayum Director, Intractable Ltd
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Solution Name
Intractable